Theological Theses · §2615 · Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu

Conversion contingent, yet infallibly foreknown

Thesis XXXIII. Their next question is whether conversion is a contingent and uncertain thing, or whether, in the person converted, it comes about infallibly through a necessity of cause or of outcome. Their answer: 'Being free, conversion is contingent; being known to God in advance, it is not uncertain to him.

Its necessity is not that of the cause, or of the consequent, for the person was able to resist. Its necessity is that of the consequence, or of foreknowledge, and in that way it comes about without fail in anyone God foreknew would be converted.'

Latin

XXXIII. Si quaeratur An conversio contingens & incerta sit, An vero necessitate causae aut eventus infallibiliter sequatur in eo qui convertitur? Respondemus conversionem esse contingentem quia libera est; nec tamen Deo incertam, quia praecognita est; nec sequi necessitate causae, sive consequentis, quia resistere poterat homo, sed necessitate consequentiae, sive ratione praescientiae infallibiliter sequi, in eo quem conversum iri praescivit Deus.

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About this text

Louis Le Blanc, a Reformed professor at Sedan, sets out theology in theses argued against Rome: Scripture, faith, grace, free choice, good works and the saints.

This volume holds the Theses on Theology I–XLIII and On Faith I–XXII, in eighteen sections.

Louis Le Blanc de Beaulieu (1614–1675) was minister and professor of theology at the Academy of Sedan, the Reformed school on France's eastern border. His Theses were disputed by students over many years and collected in a London folio (1675).

The Theological Theses range across the whole Reformed system — Scripture, God, predestination, grace, and justifying faith — in the crisp thesis-and-proof form of the seventeenth-century schools.

Date1675 AD (Sedan theses; London collection)

No modern English.

Reference

ESTC R17887; Wing L802. IA bub_gb_eOkHAW4G0-wC (+ EEBO 1675 for gap leaves).

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